Early leg kicks that hobbled his opponent gave Griffin the advantage he needed for a close — but unanimous — decision victory.

After taking the opening round with crisp striking, including a right uppercut that floored Griffin, Jackson felt the gears shift in the second.

“He jacked my leg up,” Jackson said.

The former champ was referring to Griffin’s stinging leg kicks. Jackson was knocked off balance in the first round, but the kicks really did damage in the second, when back-to-back blows forced him to retreat. However, Griffin gave his opponent a chance to recover when he took the fight to the ground. There, Jackson fended off a fairly ineffective ground and pound to get to the third round.

“The second round, when he had me on the ground the whole time, I was resting up,” said Jackson, who suffered his first loss in more than three years.

After splitting the first two rounds, Griffin and Jackson fought through three very close final rounds. (In fact, MMAjunkie.com had the fight scored 48-47 in favor of Jackson). However, Griffin’s submission attempts and aggression earned him the unanimous-decision victory on the scorecards that meant the most. The ringside judges had it 48-46, 48-46 and 49-46 in favor of Griffin.

However, the new champ was forced to shake off a number of stiff punches to survive the five-round fight. Jackson staggered him on a few occasions.

“Every [expletive] punch hurt,” said Griffin, who was also forced to deal with a cut above his eye midway through the fight. “Hell, everything hurt.”

Aside from Matt Serra, who won a special “comeback” season of “TUF” geared toward already-established fighters, Griffin becomes the first fighter from the UFC’s reality series to capture a championship.

OTHER MAIN CARD FIGHTS

In a clash of styles, neither Patrick Cote‘s stand-up nor Ricardo Almeida‘s Brazilian jiu-jitsu proved superior. However, Cote (13-4 MMA, 4-4 UFC) was aggressive enough to take the fight’s final two rounds on two judges’ scorecards for a split-decision victory over Almeida (9-3 MMA, 2-3 UFC).

Almeida scored takedowns and delivered enough punches from above to win the first round. However, the Brazilian jiu-jitsu’s energy level slowly depleted throughout the fight, which allowed Cote to avoid takedowns and connect on punches in the final two frames. The judges gave the Canadian scores of 29-28, 28-29 and 29-28.

The winner of the fight was reportedly promised a future title shot with UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva, though it may not come until after the title-holder first meets top contender Yushin Okami. However, even with his fifth consecutive victory — four of which came in the UFC — Cote did little to prove he could hang with the UFC’s seemingly indestructible 185-pound champ.

Cote, though, did display effective takedown defense, solid conditioning and a superior game plan to grind out the victory and improve his stock in the division.

In his first fight since a title loss to BJ Penn in January, Joe Stevenson (29-8 MMA, 6-2 UFC) rebounded for a remarkable second-round submission victory over Gleison Tibau (15-6 MMA, 3-3 UFC).

Tibau took the opening round, though the action stalled for nearly two minutes after he was unable to do anything with an omoplata. Stevenson simply waited out that first round, and when the opportunity presented itself in the second, he locked in a guillotine choke as Tibau shot for a takedown. His opponent simply drove into the choke, and Stevenson needed just seconds to force the tap-out once he was put on his back.

With his 7-year-old son watching him live for the first time, Stevenson claimed the victory at 2:57 of the second round.

In one of the year’s bloodiest fights, Josh Koscheck (11-2 MMA, 9-2 UFC) used takedowns and elbow strikes to slice and dice his way to a unanimous-decision victory over Chris Lytle (25-16-5 MMA, 4-8 UFC).

Koscheck opened a thumb-sized cut above Lytle’s right eye in the second round, and dozens of additional elbow strikes caused the wound to gush blood for the final eight minutes.

Even early in the fight, Lytle failed to gain any advantage with his stand-up. Koscheck continually skirted the blows and easily secured the takedowns. After the fight, Koscheck admitted he had plans to stand and trade with the part-time pro boxer, but rather quickly, the four-time All-American wrestler opted instead to take the fight to the ground.

“The game plan — well, my game plan was to stand, but my coaches etched out a game plan, and I executed it right,” Koscheck said.

In the end, the judges gave him the unanimous-decision victory via scores of 30-26, 29-27 and 30-28.

In the night’s first televised bout, Tyson Griffin (12-1 MMA, 5-1 UFC) used everything in his bag of tricks to batter Marcus Aurelio (16-6 MMA, 2-2 UFC) for a full 15 minutes.

Despite giving up a significant reach advantage, Griffin mixed up punches and kicks from all angles to keep Aurelio constantly guessing. Leg kicks, lunging body shots and an extremely effective left-uppercut-right-hook combination let Griffin control the fight from the opening bell.

Despite his opponent’s wrestling prowess, Aurelio’s best shot at victory was getting the fight to the ground. He struggled to get the takedown, though, and the few times the fight did hit the ground, Griffin slipped out of every submission attempt only to deliver more punishment.

“I was just trying to raise up to rain down some big shots,” Griffin said. “I landed some good ones.”

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